‘Simpsons’ creator Sam Simon is on a quest to ‘rescue’ racehorses from what he calls ‘factory farming’ while donating his vast fortune to charity as he dies from cancer.

Simon has committed the bulk of the hundreds of millions earned from co-creating the hit animated series to animal causes and recently revealed he secretly paid for a horse to be retired from competitive racing.

The animal rights advocate was diagnosed in 2012 with terminal colon cancer and given no more than six months to live. He has since made animal rescue his primary mandate.

Down but not out: 'Simpsons' co-creator Sam Simon's terminal colon cancer hasn't stopped him from pursuing his passion of saving animals from abuse

‘My new hobby in the twilight of my life,’ he told NBC News, ‘my rich man’s hobby, I should say, is liberating animals from abusive situations such as roadside zoos and circuses.’

He and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk soon ‘talked about what we can do in the time I had left.’

Simon first learned of the race horse Valediction through Newkirk, he said.

The horse had been trained by two of the best in the business, one being Steve Asmussen, but had been abused.

Asmussen has won thousands of races and earned hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of thoroughbreds, but he was pushing Valediction too far, PETA insisted.

Trainer Busi could also be heard on the tape saying the horse was fine after suffering an in-race injury – the equine had surgery only eight days later to remove bone fragments from its left front foot.

Only six weeks ago: Chad Schofield riding Valediction in front before winning Race 1, the Simpson Construction Handicap during Melbourne Racing at Moonee Valley Racecourse on March 14, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia

Safe and sound: Valediction has since found a home on a Maryland horse farm with the help of PETA and Simon

A hairline fracture was left to heal, but trainers started using liquid nitrogen before sending it to a rehab program in upstate New York to speed along the process as it was rushed back to the track in what Simon says was an unethical process.

‘I’m coming into it knowing that these horses are commodities, that this this is factory farming more than it is a sport,’ said Simon.

The group secretly recorded trainers calling the horse a ‘rat,’ code for a horse that doesn’t make any money, as well as how to fool race inspectors into allowing a sore horse to run.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Simon bought Valediction through a front man for $60,000, he says, and a subsequent medical exam backed PETA’s claims.

The horse was revealed to have ‘significant arthritis, inflammation and evidence of a past fracture,’ he told the network.

‘The future soundness of this horse given his X-rays and lameness … is questionable. I would recommend he be retired as future soundness, even for trail riding, is questionable,’ a medical report said.

The source of his millions: Simon earned the bulk of his $500million wealth from co-creating 'The Simpsons'

Racing the horse even one more time put it at risk for an injury significant enough to have it put down, experts believed.

PETA arranged for the horse to find a new home on a Maryland farm.

‘Valediction was in pain, arthritic and had suffered a fracture, and yet he was being prepared to race again, to wring every last dollar out of him,’ Newkirk told the network.

‘If Sam Simon hadn’t stepped in to rescue him, I think it’s a safe bet Valediction would’ve had a catastrophic breakdown, that his next race would have been his last, and then, like most spent racehorses, he could’ve become hamburger.’

Retired racehorses are often shipped off to Canada and Mexico for use in dog food and even human consumption – horse meat sales are illegal for any use in the U.S.

The trainers insisted they ‘always try to do the right thing by the horse,’ and also insisted the PETA video is ‘heavily edited.’